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G-Man
The G-Man is a primary character and on-and-off villain in the FPS thriller series Half-Life, although it remains a mystery who or what he truly is or what his true role and motives are. The G-Man is an older looking business-type man who appears throughout the series in various forms and places, often delivering cryptic messages to the main characters, and seemingly controlling them, or at least observing them at all times. He is usually seen with a mysterious briefcase. During gameplay, G-Man often makes appearances in areas that are out of the player's reach, only confronting the player directly at the end of the game where he has taken away access to their weapons. In-between Half Life and Half Life 2, he seems to put Gordon Freeman in stasis until the Earth has been successfully taken over by the Combine. Description G-Man is seen throughout the game either watching the player, or tending to another task such as talking to other characters or simply walking through the area. His appearance is that of a businessman always wearing a blue suit, tie, and carrying his signature briefcase which upon close observation contains a handgun and photo. Other distinct features being his rough sandy face, flat hair cut and widows peak, and his abnormally light blue eyes. However his most distinct feature is his calm raspy voice, often slurring, pausing between words, and stretching syllables in a way that makes his voice more distinct than others. This all falls together with his uptight look, he constantly maintains his appearance as he is commonly seen straightening his tie or wiping dirt off his coat, this mixed with his twisted ideals makes him a perfect villain, giving him a calm trust-able facade over a cold monstrous personality. Character As G-Man's name implies he acts exactly as an agent of the FBI, with his calm clever personality, and his concerns in taking care of the Black Mesa incident in a professional and clean way, leaving Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shephard to do that for him. G-man does not appear to work alone, rather he works for his "employers" as he calls them, saying that he is simply doing what he's told. G-man's job in the incident seems to be simply setting up the dominoes and knocking the first one down, leaving the reaction to occur as he intended in an ultimate effort not to elevate the situation, but to end it. However he does not seem to be out to stop the problem but to stop it and silence it, leading him to nuke the entire facility and discard of all witnesses except for those he finds useful later on. Though he has a human appearance he is anything but, G-man possesses many supernatural powers such as teleportation, inter-dimensional travel, and even the ability to stop time, also he speaks in a way that seems like he's struggling to pronounce some words, and above all he is completely invulnerable. History ''Half-Life'' For most of the game the G-Man watches Gordon Freeman as he attempts to survive in Black Mesa in out-of-reach areas Once Gordon prevails against and defeats the Nihilanth, the G-Man teleports Gordon to a strange, elevator-like place and removes all of his weapons and tools, claiming they were "government property", and begins rambling about his "employers", how Xen is now under his "employers" control and of Gordon's "limitless potential", teleporting them around various places of Xen as he does so, once he is done rambling, he will teleport both of them to a Black Mesa tram that appears to be flying through space at high speeds, giving him an offer to work for him, opening a portal to an unknown location If Gordon refuses to enter the portal, the G-Man sees this as Gordon refusing his offer, enraged but keeping his calm, the G-Man teleports Gordon infront of an army of Alien Grunts, leaving him with the phrase "No regrets, Mr. Freeman.", in the files there is an extended version of this phrase, "No regrets, Mr. Freeman, but there are a few survivors of your personal holocaust, who would like the chance to meet the man responsible for the total annihilation of their race.", meaning G-Man knew the Alien Grunts would murder Gordon out of revenge for their race, and to ensure this, never returned Gordon's weapons, leaving him defenseless against the army If Gordon does enter the portal, the G-Man will congratulate Gordon for his choice, putting him in stasis in his realm to wait for the up-coming Combine invasion to use Gordon as a tool to effectively silence the Combines. ''Half-Life: Opposing Force'' While Adrian Shephard is training in boot camp, the G-Man accelerates his training without anyone knowing, the drill instructor commenting about it. Meanwhile, in Black Mesa, it seems Adrian is finished as radioactive liquids steadily rise towards him. However, G-Man opens a door, allowing him to escape the dangerous liquids and saving his life However later when trying to escape Black Mesa, before Adrian can escape, G-Man closes the door on him, forcing him back into the facility Even later G-Man re-arms the nuclear bomb Adrian had dis-armed earlier to destroy the Black Mesa facility, leaving the Alien Invasion problem to Gordon to clean-up After Adrian kills the Gene Worm, G-Man teleports him to safety on a HECU V-22 Osprey, G-Man once again begins rambling about his "employers" and their wishes to effectively silence all witnesses of the Black Mesa incident, but decides against their wishes and decides to spare Adrian, but he must be detained, however G-Man begins musing about the fact of Adrian's ability to "adapt & survive against all odds" in Black Mesa, a giant explosion is then seen in the background, signaling Black Mesa's destruction, G-Man then teleports the Osprey to Xen before finally teleporting it into the same void seen at the end of Half-Life, describing it as a place where Adrain can "do no harm" and "no harm can come to him", he then opens the cockpit door and summons a portal before leaving Adrian in the empty void. ''Half-Life: Blue Shift'' The G-Man appears momentarily at the beginning of the expansion pack, appearing to either not notice Barney Calhoun, or is just completely ignoring him. ''Half-Life: Decay'' Similar to Half-Life: Blue Shift, the G-Man only appears momentarily at the beginning of the expansion pack, appearing to either not notice doctors Gina Cross and Colette Green, or is just completely ignoring them. ''Half-Life: Alyx'' The G-Man will appear in the virtual reality game Half-Life: Alyx, which takes place during the gap between the original Half-Life and Half-Life 2. He appears at the end of the first trailer. ''Half-Life 2'' G-Man awakens Gordon from stasis 20 years after the Black Mesa incident, however, after the prologue, he once again stalks Gordon from out-of-reach areas, especially during vehicle sequences G-Man appears at the end of the game after Gordon does critical damage to the Dark Energy reactor, resulting in a giant explosion that would have no doubtedly killed Gordon, however G-Man suddenly slows and stops time, slowly appearing in the area and once again begins rambling about how it is his "time" again, he then decides instead of offering Gordon the illusion of free will, which is no doubtedly mentioning the fact that G-Man kills Gordon in Half-Life if he refuses his offer, he takes the liberty of deciding for him and once again teleports Gordon to his realm, supposedly leaving Alyx to be annihilated by the explosion, and once again puts Gordon back in stasis, ending the game by straightening his tie and leaving through a door. ''Half-Life 2: Episode One'' The G-Man appears at the beginning of the game, appearing through the same door seen at the end of Half-Life 2, suddenly a purple glowing Vortigaunts with a blue glowing eye appears, however G-Man seems amused by this sight, another purple Vortigaunt appears, wiping the smirk off G-Man's face, more and more purple Vortigaunts appear, a look of irritation now on the G-Man's face, 2 purple Vortigaunts then appear next to Gordon, realizing the Vortigaunts mission is to retrieve Gordon from his realm, and that the purple Vortigaunts chanting was restraining him, irritation shifts to anger, straightening his tie violently, G-Man replies to the purple Vortigaunts chanting with the phrase "We'll... see about... that.", however before G-Man can break free, the purple Vortigaunts successfully teleport Gordon out of the G-Man's realm and away from his grasp, after this G-Man is not seen for the rest of the game. ''Half-Life 2: Episode Two'' Before the Vortigaunts could begin healing Alyx, time suddenly stops, G-Man cals out to Gordon, and explains the Vortigaunts have somehow been preventing him from telekinetically talking to Gordon, he then explains how the Vortigaunts used to care nothing about Alyx as all their experiences with humanity ended with a crowbar coming to them through a steel corridor, G-Man then reveals he "plucked" Alyx from Black Mesa and used to think of her as nothing more than a child, however he learned to ignore the "naysayers", and explains he remains confident that she has more worth then the appraisal, he then explains how he wishes for "repayment" for saving Gordon's life in Half-Life 2, this repayment is safely escorting Alyx to White Forest, then expresses his wishes to not be able to just keep an eye on Gordon, but has agreed to abide by certain "restrictions", before leaving, he tells Alyx to relay these words to her father: Eli Vance, "Prepare for unforeseen consequences." Once Gordon, Alyx and Eli meet up, Alyx walks up to her father and relays G-Man's words before holding her head, G-Man briefly appearing on the tv screen before she speaks, Eli is disturbed by her words and makes an excuse to make her leave the room, after Alyx leaves Eli reveals he to like Gordon is aware of the G-Man's presence and reveals that G-Man supplied Black Mesa with GG-3883, a substance that ultimately caused the Black Mesa incident and whispered into his ear "prepare for unforeseen consequences" shortly before the Resonance Cascade, Eli tells Gordon he believes the phrase is a warning regarding the Borealis, and reiterates his belief that it should be destroyed lest the events of the Black Mesa incident repeat themselves, however anything else Eli knew about the G-Man is left unsaid as he is killed by an Combine Advisor. Characters who "work" for the G-Man Gordon Freeman Gordon Freeman is a scientist in the Anomalous Materials Labs of the Black Mesa Research Facility where the entire incident begins. G-man is very interested in Gordon, seeing him as a perfect employee due to his persistence and skills which ultimately lead him to stop the invasion and save the world. G-man is seen constantly watching Gordon from a distance even before the incident occurs, he is finally confronted at the end of the game explaining that his "employers" agree with him that Gordon has limitless potential. Though G-man's conversational skills are calm and professional, his negotiation skills are designed to get what he wants. When he confronts Gordon at the end he offers him a job working for him and leads him through a portal which then takes off in Half life 2, but if refused he will teleport him back to the alien homeworld in front of an army of alien grunts leaving him to be massacred by what he addresses as "survivors of your personal holocaust." Adrian Shephard Adrian Shephard is a military operative of the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit that infiltrates the facility to combat the alien forces, and Black Mesa personnel. Shephard enters the military academy to become a simple soldier but is strangely bumped up to special training for the HECU. G-man can be seen standing in a window looking down at Shephard in the camp, emphasizing that G-man bumped him up intentionally. Shephard is deployed soon after to combat the incident where he loses most of his squad, and is forced to retreat with the rest of the soldiers, only to be stopped by G-man, denying him escape and forcing him to delve deeper into the facility. Shephard then goes on to deactivate a nuclear warhead placed by Black Op soldiers and destroy the Gene Worm, a large powerful alien coming through a portal in the basement that all the other soldiers failed to destroy. Upon the Gene worm's death Shephard wakes up inside a V-22 Osprey like the one he came to Black Mesa in, except with G-man inside. G-man then informs Shephard that he has done good in his mission and that he has ultimately ended the second invasion. However as it turns out G-man re-activated the warhead, destroying Black Mesa with an explosion big enough to be seen from the Osprey. He then informs Shephard that there is still the matter of witnesses, which leads him to abandon Shephard in the Osprey which he has teleported to an alternate dimension, leaving him in what G-man sees as "A state where you can do no harm, and no harm can come to you." Black Mesa G-man played a major role in the Black Mesa incident, being the one who started and ended it. It's revealed by Eli Vance (another one of his employees) that he was the one who supplied Black Mesa with the Xen crystal that caused the accident, and he also re-activated the nuclear warhead that completely destroyed the facility. G-man's motive for causing the incident is clearly an order by his "employers" due to Black Mesa being as G-man tells Shephard "one of the biggest embarrassments". As it is revealed in the game the Black Mesa scientists were constantly traveling back and forth from their dimension to the aliens and bringing back specimens for study, due to the fact that this was entirely dangerous to do, in threat of causing inter-dimensional rifts, or revealing this to the public, it was decided to silence the entire operation before anything could happen. Though the invasion did what it was supposed to in destroying the facility, and the nuke wiped out the aliens, the rift that was letting the aliens in remained open, leading him to get Gordon and Shephard to close the rifts for him, leaving him to destroy the remaining aliens and people with the nuke, thereby silencing the entire dilemma. Notable Quotes }} Other appearances G-Man appears in a variety of fan mods, comics and online videos related to Half-Life. Web series ''Freeman's Mind'' In the Half-Life machinima Freeman's Mind, in which Ross Scott narrates the thoughts of Gordon Freeman during the storyline, G-Man makes appearances throughout in the same way he does in the original games. At the end of the first series, G-Man offers Freeman a chance to work with him, which Freeman accepts, thinking that G-Man will send him to Hawaii. However G-Man pulls Freeman out of stasis after a couple of decades and places him in City 17. During the climax of the original Half-Life, Freeman believes that G-Man maybe a time lord (from the Doctor Who franchise), due to his abilities unlike that of a normal human being, although this is just speculation on his part. In an alternative ending to the original series in which Freeman turns down G-Man's offer of employment, he is sent to the Xen borderworld and is attacked by mutated G-Man creatures. Webcomics ''Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman'' G-Man's role in spying on the protagonists of Half-Life before then mysteriously disappearing is joked upon in the webcomic. He is first seen spying on the comic's protagonist Gordon Frohman, who later discovers G-Man carelessly hiding behind a box to avoid detection. G-Man later distracts Frohman and disappears up a lamppost, making Frohman believe G-Man is truly skilled at disappearing. Later in the series, a couple of other G-Men who look similar to the main one are seen spying on G-Man from afar at the coast, and show jealousy towards him. The two other G-Men are more than likely under the employment of the mysterious employers that G-Man mentions in the original Half-Life. During Frohman's time on the coast, he spots G-Man who does another disappearing act, only to then be attacked by Antlions. Modifications ''Azure Sheep & Point of View'' G-Man appears in the Half-Life modification Azure Sheep and its quasi-sequel Point of View as a major antagonist and presumably the mastermind behind the events of the Black Mesa Incident. Unlike his cryptic nature in Half-Life in which it is unclear if he is the villain or not, G-Man here is presented in an antagonistic nature, as he leads the military and Black Operations unit that infiltrate Black Mesa, and briefly captures the protagonist of Azure Sheep Just Barney in order to turn him into a vortigaunt slave, although this plan is prevented by Barney's girlfriend Kate. Later in Azure Sheep, G-Man and his team capture Kate and she is held hostage by his soldiers, but is rescued by Barney and they escape Black Mesa. In Point of View, G-Man stalks the protagonist, which is a vortigaunt and is spotted with his black operations team infiltrating a research center on Xen and killing the employees. During these games, G-Man acts as a karma houndini as he never pays for his actions towards the player, and committing genocide on those that stand in his way. As the two mods were released prior to Half-Life 2, G-Man is presumably either meant to be the mysterious Administrator referenced in Half-Life, or a government agent (as he is seen leading a black operations unit). The Administrator would later be turned into a separate character in Half-Life 2 with Wallace Breen. ''Half-Life : Echoes'' G-Man appears in the well received 2018 Half-Life mod, in which he spies on the player several times in the game. In the end the player stumbles across G-Man at the Vance living quarters on Black Mesa, where he teleports an infant Alyx Vance away and kills a stalking Kingpin, before then leaving the protagonist to die in the nuclear explosion which destroys the facility. ''Hunt Down the Freeman'' In the negatively received fan game Hunt Down the Freeman, G-Man sends the protagonist Mitchell to hunt down Gordon Freeman, who was presumably responsible for brutally attacking Mitchell during the Black Mesa Incident and leaving his disfigured. The depiction of G-Man in the game is portrayed as far more ruthless, as he is directly responsible for having people killed to achieve his own goals, whereas in the main Half-Life series (which Hunt Down the Freeman attempts to closely follow), he is willing to disobey his superiors to save the lives of others (such as Alyx Vance and Adrian Shephard). Other works ''Epistle 3'' In August 2017, former Valve employee and Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw released a fan-fiction on his blog, which when translated creates a possible story outline of what Half-Life 2: Episode Three could have been. G-Man appears at the climax of the story, in which Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance plan to ride the Borealis into the Combine Homeworld and destroy it. Before the Borealis collides, G-Man arrives and saves Alyx Vance's life, and leaves Gordon Freeman to die, presumably because he no longer has any more use for him in his plans. Gordon is later rescued by the vortigaunts before the Borealis is destroyed, and returned to a beach on earth at some point in the distant future, without knowing if the resistance's fight against the Combine had succeeded or not. Gallery G-Man (Half-Life).jpg| G-man negotiating with Gordon. G man-1-.jpg| G-man sees potential in Gordon. 906561-gmanasasas super-1-.jpg|G-man in the Osprey with Shephard G-Man door-1-.jpg|G-man straightening his tie File:0245.Half life gman 3.jpg-600x0-1-.jpg|G-man keeping Shephard from the escape Osprey(behind) Trivia *Originally when Half-Life came out it was thought that G-Man was the often mentioned administrator. This was due to the fact that G-Man stood out and had the appearance of someone in that role, along with the fact that he had the black mesa logo on his briefcase. Many Half-Life mods at the time would assume G-Man was the administrator of Black Mesa, and place him in an antagonistic role, and even online guides would refer to him as 'administrator'. It wasn't until Half-Life 2's release when the administrator was revealed to be Wallace Breen, a completely separate character. *''Half-Life: Blue Shift'', Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two are the only games in the series that don't end with G-Man putting the player into stasis. Also Blue Shift and Episode One are the only games in which G-Man doesn't oversee the player's actions during the course of the game. **However it is possible he was somehow overseeing Barney Calhoun's journey in Blue Shift, as the ending of the game gives Barney's status as "Out of Range" (as he managed to escape Black Mesa). *His ability to disappear and his strange mysterious behavior has often been parodied in Half-Life related media, most notably the Half-Life 2 web-comic Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman. A disavowed and hard to find web-comic Catching the G-Man (which could of been found on the Concerned forums) dealt with a main character whose life goal was to try and catch G-Man, but always ended up failing. *Originally in Portal 2 when Wheatley (known as Pendleton at this time) awakens Chell, he informs her that "A man with a briefcase was just here to see you!", which could possibly mean that the G-Man also has an influence over Aperture Laboratories, and could also possibly be the reason Chell was awoken from her simulation, as he has awakened Gordon from stasis in the past. **He could also possibly also be the reason of Chell's bump up in testing in Portal, as he has influenced characters like the Ratman before and has also bumped up Adrian in his training from a simple soldier to a special HECU soldier. 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